Just Mobile Highway Review

By Mike Rileyon Wed, 01/11/2012

The Just Mobile Highway is billed by the manufacturer as "the high-design, high-performance in-car charger for iPhone, iPad and other USB-powered devices." Is this high-end, Apple certified charger worth the price? Read on to find out.

I've had my fair share of USB car chargers, with a majority of them being low-cost, cheap plastic chargers that either break a month after use or struggle to keep a constant clean current flowing to the battery being recharged. Some of the better models do a better job, but their bulky thick plastic shells and spaghetti cables take over what was once a sleek car dashboard. Consequently, it makes your car look disheveled and invaded by plastic bulbs and wire vines.

Apparently the folks at Just Mobile felt the same way, since they leveraged their high-end iOS-friendly stands, mounts and power design skills to the automotive environment. Good thing too, since their Highway in-car charger is a very slick iPhone, iPad and (any other USB battery-tethered gadget) design. It's got a nice, weighty feel, it fits snugly into the cigarette lighter socket and almost gives the appearance of naturally being part of the car's dashboard. If you're not a smoker, you'll probably leave your car's cigarette lighter in the glove compartment and leave the Highway plugged in all the time.

The Highway has a green LED that glows whenever its 2.1A of power is available to fast-charge your iPhone or iPad. The package also contains an Apple-certified coiled charging cable, but I decided to use the Apple cable that came with my iPad because I needed a longer length than what the Just Mobile supplied cable provided.

One additional bonus with this quality-constructed in-car USB charger is its built-in surge protection. Cheaper chargers always concerned me about how well they would protect my expensive gadgets against car electrical system spikes and other nasty side effects of the noisy DC flow typically found in most cars. Not only does the Highway charge up my iPad quickly, but it also does so without me having to worry about leaving it plugged into a shoddy electrical bridge.

If you can already afford to drive a nice car and your iOS devices are always looking for a battery recharging fix, plugging anything other than the Highway into your cigarette lighter just looks cheap and makes your expensive dashboard look like an economy car.

Mike Riley is a frequent contributor to several technical publications and specializes in emerging technologies and new development trends. Mike was previously employed by RR Donnelley as the company’s Chief Scientist, responsible for determining innovative technical approaches to improve the company’s internal and external content services. Mike also co-hosted Computer Connection, a technology enthusiast show broadcast on Tribune Media's CLTV.